La grotte du Gaulier

A fortnight before the liberation of Sedan by the American army, a group of French pro-Nazis arrived, on August 22, 1944, in the vans of the enemy in full retreat towards Germany. In this case, they were not militiamen from Darnand, but Francistes commanded by a fanatical and bloodthirsty leader named Paoli, who had become head of the Gestapo in Bourges. Intimately linked to Bucard (founder of the francist movement), Paoli brought with him a mad killer whose physical malformation caused the terrified population of Sedan to call this whole group "the band of the hunchback". These madmen lured a few resistance fighters into the trap of a fake maquis, to massacre 19 of them and wound 2 others, a killing that lasted two days, on 28 and 29 August. 9 patriots were assassinated on August 28, one after the other in the Givonne valley and its surroundings, but a wounded survivor, Pierre Discrit, managed to escape. The day after this terrible day, it was, at the cave of
Gaulier, the height of horror: 10 Sedanais were executed with a bullet in the neck after being tortured. One of the torturers had the sadism to show off the ear he had cut off one of his victims.
The family of Doctor François was decimated: with him were executed his wife, by the very hand of Paoli, and their brothers-in-law, Jean and Robert Barré. An eleventh, Georges Cablat, of admirable courage, was a real miracle: falling slightly wounded among the bodies of the dying, he played dead but was then seriously hit by a final burst of submachine guns intended to finish off those who were still breathing.
Thanks to a chain of solidarity of heroic people, Cablat was transported to the hospital, where quickly operated successfully by doctor Martin, and hidden by a nun who fooled a killer who had come to finish the survivor, he was saved and remained a witness. exemplary in his wisdom and detachment.
He never consoled himself for having seen his best friend, Michel Choinet, employed in the same textile company as him, fall that day, just before him.